Nine hundred and twenty five people attended the recent public consultation exhibitions at which plans for a new offshore wind farm in Liverpool Bay were unveiled. The exhibitions were held by npower renewables1, the organisation wishing to develop the Gwynt y Môr Offshore Wind Farm, 13-15 kilometres off the coast of North Wales.
Six widely-publicised one-day exhibitions took place across the North Wales coast, in the Wirral Peninsula and in Sefton District.
The Gwynt y Môr project is still at an early stage of development, however, npower renewables believed that it was right that the first stage of public consultation should take place as soon as practically possible.
Georgia Markwell, Gwynt y Môr project consents manager, said, "We are still at an early stage in the project, but we believed that it was important to tell people as much as we know about the scheme as it stands at the moment."
The exhibitions provided an opportunity for communities close to the site to gather as much information as currently exists about the project, and have the chance to feed their views into the early design work.
Georgia Markwell continued, '"We are very grateful to those members of the public who took the time to come to the exhibitions. We had a large project team present on each day and it was very useful for us to hear what people had to say. We received a wide range of views and we are now considering this feedback. We are encouraged by the discussions that took place, and are working to respond to those visitors who submitted written questions."
Gwynt y Môr Offshore Wind Farm could comprise around 200 wind turbines, located further offshore than npower renewables' North Hoyle Offshore Wind Farm, stretching from Prestatyn in the East to Penrhyn Bay in the West.
The project would have a total generating capacity of up to 750 megawatts, and at this size would generate enough clean electricity each year to meet the demand of around 500,000 homes - equivalent to approximately all of the households in Anglesey, Gwynedd, Conwy, Denbighshire, Flintshire, Wirral, Sefton and West Lancashire2.
This amount of clean electricity generation would also prevent the annual release of around 1.85 million tonnes of carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas contributing to global warming and climate change - that's a saving equal to the annual emissions of carbon dioxide from more than 550,000 family cars each travelling 12,000 miles per year3.
It is anticipated that the application to build and operate the Gwynt y Môr Offshore Wind Farm will be submitted in the second half of 2005.
npower renewables will continue to communicate and consult with local communities throughout the development of the project.
For further information contact:
- Judith Roberts, Campbell Sampson Limited
T: 0151 236 6605
- Sara Alan-Smith, PR Officer, npower renewables
T: 01189 59 2440
Editors Notes
- npower renewables is a leading UK renewable energy generator, committed to developing and operating wind farms, biomass and hydro plant that produce sustainable and environmentally-friendly electricity.
The company operates 15 wind farms in the UK, including North Hoyle Offshore Wind Farm, the first major offshore wind farm to be built in UK waters. In addition to the 267MW of installed wind energy generation that it currently operates, npower renewables also operates 50MW of hydroelectric power, including 5 hydro stations in North Wales. In November 2003, npower and Greenpeace announced the establishment of the npower Juice fund, in association with our green electricity product npower Juice, which will help to support the development of new renewable energy technologies such as wave and tidal.
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Household figures are based on numbers of households with residents, obtained from 2001 National Census at http://www.statistics.gov.uk
- Based on Vauxhall Vectra 1.8 LS. "What Car" magazine, March 2002, 178 grammes of carbon dioxide per kilometre.
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